AUSTRALIA
Oxygen pumped to dying fish
The state of New South Wales yesterday announced plans to mechanically pump oxygen into lakes and rivers after hundreds of thousands of fish have died in heatwave conditions. Up to a million dead fish were found floating last week in the Darling River. Minister for Regional Water Niall Blair said that 16 battery-powered aerators have been bought and would be placed in the waterways.
SOUTH KOREA
North not called ‘enemy’
South Korea has stopped calling North Korea an “enemy” in its biennial defense document in an apparent effort to continue reconciliation with Pyongyang. The development comes as US and North Korean leaders are looking to set up their second summit to defuse an international standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program. South Korea first called North Korea a “main enemy” in its 1995 document, a year after North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into “a sea of fire.”
RUSSIA
Telescope ‘incommunicado’
Roscosmos, the national space agency, on Monday said it had lost control of its only space radio telescope, but that officials were working to re-establish communication. A US observatory detected signals from the space agency’s gigantic Spektr-R, or RadioAstron, telescope, which stopped responding to commands from Earth on Thursday last week, it said. “I cannot bury a satellite that is alive for sure,” RadioAstron project head Yuri Kovalev said. “It’s like asking for a comment about a sick person when doctors are fighting for his life.”
UNITED STATES
Dismemberment gets 30
A man who admitted to killing and dismembering his mother during an argument in their Honolulu, Hawaii, apartment has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Gong Yuwei (龔宇威) was charged with murder after he called police in 2017 to turn himself in after a suicide attempt. He admitted killing his mother, Gong Liuyun (龔柳雲), about six months earlier, according to court documents. When officers asked where his mother was, he said: “In the fridge.” Gong, 28, spent most of Monday’s sentencing looking down. He spoke quietly as he apologized to his family in China and Hawaii. “I am ashamed for what I did,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
UNITED STATES
Trump, Clemson ‘Lovin’ it’
The scent of burgers, fries and victory on Monday wafted through the White House as President Donald Trump saluted college football’s Clemson Tigers for winning the national championship. Trump said he even paid for the meal himself, because of the partial government shutdown. “We ordered American fast food, paid for by me,” Trump said. Silver trays held stacks of burgers from Wendy’s and McDonald’s, including Big Macs. Cups bearing the presidential seal held fries.
HONDURAS
New caravan heads to US
Hundreds of migrants on Monday began the long trek north, part of a new US-bound caravan that hopes to succeed even as a previous wave of Central Americans were unable to quickly enter the US. Television footage showed people in the city of San Pedro Sula waving Honduran flags as they began the journey. There are 600 to 800 people, according to an estimate provided by Miroslava Serpas, head of migrant affairs with the CIPRODEH human rights research center, which is accompanying the group.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing